FED UP with the controversy over her proposed film Water, filmmaker Deepa Mehta has approached the Delhi High Court in a suit seeking damages for defamation and a declaration upholding her right to make a film.
In a suit filed under Section 34 of the Specific Reliefs Act, Ms Mehta has also sought injunction, demages for defamation, libel, and misuse of confidential information with regard to the script of her film.
Ms Mehta said she had filed the suit as she was hurt by the large number of persons and media groups including newspapers and television channels saying all kinds of things without finding out the truth about her proposed film or its script. She said her plans about the film were transparent and she had nothing to hide, and denied that she had more than one scripts for the film.
Referring to allegations of plagiarism from other literary works, she said: "I believe there are no similarities between my script and any other work of literature and I have not violated anyone's copyright. (Wellknown author Sunil Gangopadhyay earlier this week exonerated filmmaker Deepa Mehta from the charge of plagiarism. He said the script of 'Water' was not based on his work 'Shei Shomay' or its English translation 'Those Days')
Ms Mehta has also refuted allegations that her movie had any derogatory references to Indian culture or traditions or it was offensive to Hinduism or Indian womanhood.
Meanwhile, Ms Mehta has not taken any decision about her shooting plans following the decision to abandon shooting in Varanasi because of the non-cooperative attitude of the UP Government. Both Madhya Pradesh CM Digvijay Singh and West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu have invited her to shoot her film in their respective states, but she has not taken any decision in this regard.
Ms Mehta had embarked on shooting the film after getting her script cleared by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, but was forced to abandon shooting on January 30 when a mob ransacked the sets at Tulsi Ghat on the banks of Ganga and setting on fire the makeshift wooden structures at Assi area. Later, she approached the Ministry and a total of five sentences were voluntarily removed from the script of the film. But even on return to Varanasi, she was unable to start the shooting as protests continued despite the assurance of the state government. She had alleged that the producers of the film lost 600,000 dollars because of the problems in Benaras.
'Water' is the third in her trilogy about the effect of the elements on the human psyche, the earlier films being 'Fire'and '1947-Earth'. The film stars Shabana Azmi, Nandita Das, Akshaye Khanna and Kulbhushan Kharbanda.
